Moving Parts
by k-Liight
Summary: Aspiring roboticist Linda Belcher, feeling her small family needs one more member, builds a little robot named Gene to help run the restaurant. But with the creation of this independently-thinking android, the Belcher family discovers the dark secrets Linda's been hiding, and Gene struggles to fine his true purpose. (AU)
1. Chapter 1

**okay, I'm gonna try a second time at writing a multi-chaptered fanfic, and of course it's for Bob's Burgers XD anyway, I've had this idea of an AU where Gene is a robot and Linda is his inventor for quite some time now, so naturally I had to expand on it in some way or another XD hope you enjoy the first chapter! :D**

Linda Belcher was certianly an interesting person to talk about. The smartest of her family, she graduated high school at 16 and went on to continue her education at a technical institute. She was great in almost every subject, but her passion was robotics. She was a born inventor with a very creative mind. Unfortunately, her ideas never really sold out. She kept on trying, though. Many people were surprised when she married the aspiring burger chef instead of the dashing company CEO or even the short-statured health inspector. But she loved her husband Bob with all her heart, as well as their two daughters, Tina and Louise.

Linda had her own secret lab underneath the basement of the family restaurant, one that she dug out and built herself. Well, sort of. She made a robot to do the excavating. She then made another one to build the walls. Everything else she did herself. It wasn't a very large lab-Bob's head scraped the ceiling every time he went down there to check on her-but it was just enough room for her to get her work done. Besides, if she ever needed more room, she could always just fire up her excavator bot and her wall-building bot and make more room. They were both sitting in a corner of the lab, unused since then. She had tried to pitch them to multiple companies, but to no avail. Seemed like personal secret lab-building robots weren't very much in demand.

But, maybe this next one would be.

She had been working on this particular robot for almost two years now, much longer than any other project had taken her. Then again, she always made sure to juggle time spent in her lab with helping Bob in the restaurant and spending time with her daughters, so it wasn't like she was down there 24/7 like some kind of hermit. And while she shared most of her ideas to her family with a gleam in her eye, she was keeping this one a surprise. This must've been a very big deal to her, and the suspense was killing her family.

"I'm almost done, Bobby," she said, "you'll see hi-it real soon!"

"You said that a month ago, Lin," Bob groaned.

"Yeah, what's taking you so long?" Louise added.

"Well, I had a few bumps in the road, but I think I got it now!" Linda chirped.

"Geez Mom, maybe you could at least bring me down there this time so I can learn some stuff." Louise had inherited her mother's passion for robotics, as evidenced by her fingerless work gloves and the tool belt around her waist, and by a pair of goggles strapped over top of her pink bunny ears hat.

"Nice try, little missy, but you know this is a surprise," Linda playfully admonished. "Don't worry, though, we'll look through some of my books later tonight." With a wink, she exited the restaurant and descended to her lab once more. Bob was just about to go back to cooking burgers when Jimmy Pesto came in to cause him more grief.

"Eeeey, Bob~ what's cookin'? Oh wait, nothing. Otherwise we'd be smelling smoke from across the street. Haha."

"Ugh, what do you want now, Pesto?"

"Oh I was just wondering how life's been going for you being a single dad these past couple years."

Bob almost choked on nothing. "Wh-e-eh-what?! Why the hell would you say that, my wife is not dead!"

"Well she may as well be, I mean I never see her anymore. Spends all of her time down in that lab."

"She comes up... you just haven't been looking over here at the right times."

"It must not be very often, I'm always looking over here at your silly restaurant."

"...Well to be fair it's usually upstairs a couple hours before the kids go to bed."

"What, she doesn't like helping you out in the restaurant?" for a second Jimmy seemed genuinely confused, but then his expression and voice became significantly darker.

"Gee, Bob... it's almost like she... doesn't love you anymore."

That came like a slap in the face to Bob. In the back of his mind he knew it couldn't be true, but that didn't stop him from taking in a sharp breath of air and blinking rapidly. His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were starting to turn white. Come on now, Bob, don't lose your cool in front of Jimmy Pesto!

"Aww, don't cry, Bob... there's sure to be other women..." before he could continue, a swift kick was delivered to his shin by Louise.

"Get the hell out of here and stop messing with my dad!" she yelled.

"Yeah, don't talk to our father like that, you asshole!" Tina joined, about to throw her notebook at him.

"Okay okay, I'm out of here! Jeez can't you people take a joke?" he said as he walked out the door.

"We only take funny ones, and that wasn't very funny." Tina practically said it to herself, since Jimmy was already out the door and making his way back to his place.

"What an ass," Louise said. "He's usually just a thorn in our side, but THAT was an all-time low." Her thoughts were interrupted by a sniffle from behind the counter. Bob was still standing there, trying to control his emotions.

"Ugh!" Louise groaned. She ran down the stairs to the basement and banged on the doors that looked like average storm cellar doors but were really doors to Linda's little lab.

"Mom! Get your ass up here! Dad's crying because he thinks you don't love him anymore!"

"I'm not crying!" Bob choked out from upstairs.

"WHAAAAAT?!"

Linda barged through the doors and practically flew up the stairs to Bob. They immediately wrapped their arms around each other as Linda patted Bob's back.

"Ssshhhh, it's okay Bobby, I'm here," Linda cooed, rocking the two of them back and forth a little. Tina awwed at the sight while Louise simply scoffed and walked away.

"Now who the hell gave you the crazy idea that I don't love you anymore?" Linda asked gently, yet sternly.

"Stupid Pesto," Bob sighed.

"Oh Bob... Jimmy Pesto might be handsome, but he's an idiot. I still love you, and I always will. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Especially not Pesto."

Bob relaxed, exhaling through his nose. He had been blessed with the most loving, most beautiful wife he could have ever asked for, and nothing could take her away from him.

Linda remained upstairs for the rest of the day, helping Bob with the restaurant and the girls with their homework, but when the night came, she couldn't sleep. She was itching to complete her robot. She was so close to being finished with him she could taste it. It was about 1:00 in the morning when she finally had enough. She looked over to Bob; he was out like a light. She smiled; it wasn't often he slept that good and he deserved the rest. Making sure not to pull any covers off of her sleeping husband, she crept down the stairs, unlocked the restaurant, then locked it back up again as she went inside, and made her way to her lab from there. She flipped the light switch on, blinking a couple times to adjust her eyes to the light. Pushing the cushy black rally-chair underneath her, she quickly got to work on her computer. Aside from tightening a few screws and testing the electricals, all Linda had to do was fix a small error in the coding. This particular error, if left uncorrected, would merely cause the robot to think and process differently than she wanted him to, but she knew that the correct programming was important. The smallest of mistakes could lead to the biggest disasters.

The coding had taken her a lot longer to fix than she thought it would. So had testing the electricals. Turns out that they weren't working properly at all, so she had to fix them. But, she pulled through. After testing the electricals for a second time and putting on the finishing touches, she'd be done, and she was determined to get this robot finished before Bob and the kids woke up. She checked her watch, holy crap, almost 7:00?! Bob was going to be up soon! In a panic, she quickly went back to work.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BE-

Bob groaned as he slammed the alarm off. He blinked tiredly a few times. Time to get up and have some coffee. He rolled over to look at Linda-wait where was she?

"Ugh," Bob groaned for a second time. After that little banter with Pesto the day before, he was really hoping that Linda would stay with him all night. Oh well, he knew that robot she was building meant a lot to her, so if it made her happy, then he wasn't going to stop her.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of someone hurriedly dashing up the stairs and through the hallways. He raised his eyebrow; what on Earth was going on?

"Bob! Bob! Bob!" his wife's voice yelled.

"Linda? What's going on?!"

She hurriedly ran into their shared bedroom, and Bob was expecting something bad to have happened, but Linda, despite her slightly frazzled hair and the bags under her large honey brown eyes, had the biggest of smiles on her face.

"Bob, get Tina and Louise up, I finally finished my robot!"

 **aaaaand a cliff hanger! I'm so mean XD I wasn't originally planning to cut this chapter off before introducing RoboGene, but it was getting kinda lengthy so I had to, sorry XD next chapter we'll get to see Linda's creation, so keep your heads up! :D**


	2. Chapter 2

Louise could hardly contain her excitement as Linda led her and the rest of the family down the stairs. Out of the three of them, Louise had been anticipating this new invention the most. Of course, that didn't mean Bob and Tina weren't awaiting any less eagerly, but Louise was the one who would actually understand the robot's dynamics on more than just a basic level. If something was busted and Linda couldn't be reached to fix it, Louise was the next person they'd consult. She couldn't wait to see what kind of tech her mother had used this time.

Linda had left the restaurant door unlocked in her excitement, so there was no need to use the keys. She didn't bother locking it back up, either, knowing that the restaurant would be opened soon. It took all of Louise's strength not to barge past her mother and charge down the stairs to see the new robot before anyone else. Her mother wanted them all to see it together.

"I'm surprised I didn't blow a fuse in the house testing the eletricals," Linda mused to herself as they entered the basement.

"I'm glad," Bob said rather seriously. The electric bills had already been a little higher than usual these past two years, he didn't feel like a blown fuse was something to joke about.

"Oh relax Bobby, I would've been able to fix it," Linda reassured. She open the cellar doors, and Louise's cool finally blew. She couldn't take the suspense anymore!

"Me first! Me first!" she cried childishly. "I have to see this!" She barged past her sister, father, and mother, and jumped into Linda's lab in excitement, only to find-

"I don't see anything," Louise blurted, a little disappointed.

"That's because he's hidden," Linda said matter-of-factly. Louise raised an eyebrow at the use of "he" rather than "it", but shook her head. That sneaky woman, Linda. She should've known she'd find a way to make sure they were all together come the big reveal, whether someone got ahead or not. Linda jumped in, Tina and Bob following suit. Bob cowered a little, not wanting to scrape his head again.

"Uhh, Linda, is it okay if I sit down?" Bob asked.  
"Of course!" Linda chirped. Bob grunted a little as he lowered himself onto the cold concrete. "You guys are probably gonna be here for a while, haha."

Tina promptly sat down beside Bob at her mother's words, even though she was nowhere near tall enough to reach the ceiling. Louise, however, kept standing. There was no way she was sitting down for something as exciting as this.

Linda came up to what appeared to be a metallic box of sorts, that couldn't be anymore than five feet tall. There was an opening of sorts, covered by a purple curtain. Linda discreetly peeked behind the curtain, making sure everything was set, before pulling her head out and grabbing what looked like a remote control device from her back pocket.

"It's remote controlled?" Bob asked.

"Not quite," Linda answered. "This is just the activation button. Too many great inventors have made the mistake of putting the activation buttons directly on their robots. I don't want just any old Tom, Dick, or Harry to be able to shut my robot on or off."

Bob, Tina, and Louise all remained still. This was the moment they had all been waiting for for two years, the big reveal. Louise was literally shaking in anticipation. Linda took a couple steps back from the box and, bending down just a little, pressed the activation button. A faint, green glow began to emit from behind the purple curtain, along with a few beeping sounds.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Linda began dramatically, "introducing my latest creation-" Tina let out a short "Ah!" as a metallic hand popped out through the curtain- "and the newest member of the family, I present to you, Gene Belcher!"

She held her arms out, and the robot stepped out from behind the curtain, revealing itself completely. The other three Belchers collectively let out a "whoa".

It was much more humanoid in appearance than they expected him to be. Its features resembled that of a young boy. Its-or rather, his-build was small and round, and the way his metallic exterior was colored resembled the rest of the family's skin tone, and looked as if he wore a bright yellow T-shirt and light blue shorts. His feet were red, as were his nose, ears, and the little spheres at the ends of his blue antennae. Strange, onyx-colored metal surrounded his head, resembling a hairstyle. A rosy pink had been painted on his cheeks, giving him a perpetual innocent blush. Most intriguing of all, though, were his eyes. Huge, bright, glowing, electric green orbs surrounded by black. Those eyes blinked a few times as they processed what he was seeing. His programming told him that the three people in front of him were his father, Bob, and his sisters, Tina and Louise. Small beep noises resonated through his head as he confirmed that these people were indeed his family. He turned his head over to his right, and looked over the tall woman wearing red glasses and a grease-stained white lab coat. This was his mother, Linda, the one who had built him. He raised one of his small, robotic hands in a wave.

"Hi Mom!" he chirped. The rest of the Belchers gasped.

"Whoa, did he just call you 'Mom'?" Louise gasped.

"I programmed him to be able to recognize us, and yes, he did call me 'Mom', I created him, so I'm technically his mother. And Bob is technically his father."

"Which means Louise and I are technically his sisters," Tina finished, putting the pieces together.

"He's gonna be our brother?!" Louise asked excitedly.

"Yes, but he's also going to be our new kitchen helper!" Linda beamed. Louise pumped her first with a little "yes!". Gene looked around, blinking a few times.

"Where's the food?" he asked. Bob and the girls bust out laughing; such a question was very strange for a robot to ask.

"It's upstairs in the kitchen, sweetie," Linda said. Gene began to walk towards the cellar doors. He had a cute little way of walking, it was almost a waddle. He stopped in front of the exit, his curious green eyes examining the opening.

"Looks like he might need a little boost," Bob said, grunting as he stood up. Tina followed suit.

"No no, he's got this, watch," Linda assured. Gene calculated the width of the opening and the distance to get through it. A slight whirring sound emitted from his body as he started to crouch down. Then, suddenly, he jumped up. Just sprang up like a rocket ship, and jumped up out of the cellar and into the rest of the basement.

"Whoa!" Louise cried. Linda gave her a boost out of the lab, and Bob did the same with Tina. Gene was already making his way up the stairs to the restaurant. They followed him, curious as to what he was going to do. Upon entering the restaurant area, they found Gene staring at the Burger of the Day sign. It displayed today's humorously-named burger: the Pardon the Bun burger. It came with an extra fluffy, extra buttery, extra peppery bun topped with extra sesame seeds, and Swiss cheese on the burger. He then raced to the freezer and grabbed a large chunk of beef. Going over to the kitchen, his hands started to glow a faint orange, and the meat rapidly thawed out in seconds.

"Oh my god!" Bob cried happily. Gene fired up the grill and beckoned for Bob to come over and take care of the meat from there. Bob obliged, dark eyes darting between the burger and his new robot son. Said robot got some dough from the freezer, super thawed it, and began making the buns.

"He's amazing!" Bob gaped as he mindlessly flipped the burger patty. As soon as Gene had shaped the buns, he lifted the metal over his stomach area up to reveal what appeared to be a miniature oven chamber. He placed the buns inside and closed the chamber. A louder whirring sound filled the room for about ten seconds, before a ding noise was heard. Perfectly cooked buns emerged from Gene's mini-stove, and were placed under the nose of an amazed Bob Belcher.

"Holy crap," he gasped, "You got those buns done in a minute flat. I'm not even done with my burger yet!"

"It's okay, Dad, you can go at your own pace," Gene said happily, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. He then grabbed a block of Swiss cheese and began slicing it perfectly.

"Linda, this is amazing," Bob said to his wife.

"I knew you'd like him!" Linda chirped. Suddenly, Gene stopped what he was doing. Bob wasn't sure what was going on, but he appeared to be calculating something. Then, he walked over to the fridge, and pulled out a pickle.

"Why wasn't there any mention of pickles on the sign?!" Gene said. "A good burger needs pickles!" He tossed the pickle to Bob, who just barely caught it. "Besides, I think some pickle slices would go good with that burger, anyway." Bob's jaw dropped, and Tina whistled, while Louise looked even more excited.

"Did he just..." Bob was still struggling to believe what just happened, "...did he just think on his own? I mean he literally just said 'I think'."

"Yeah I was wondering if that part would work or not," Linda said almost sheepishly, rubbing her arm.

"Linda... I take that back, this isn't amazing, this is _revolutionary_."

"Well I don't know about that, but I'm glad you like him so much! Really, I am."

Suddenly, Linda found herself enveloped in a bone-crushing hug and with something warm and wet on her cheek. She realized that Bob must be feeling affectionate.

"Bobby!" she cried happily. "Get back to cookin' your  
burger, ya big ol' cuddle monster!"

"Aw, sick!" Louise yelled, and walked away. Tina chuckled softly and followed Louise over to the counter where Gene had continued slicing the cheese.

"Sooo, Gene," Louise addressed her new robot brother. "How does it feel?"

"How does what feel?"

"You know...this. Life. Being in the world."

"Oh. It's cool, I guess. Different.

"Different? Different from what? you never had to practice back-kicks in a dark and empty womb."

"No, but there were times when Mom would activate me and I wouldn't work right. Most of it's a blur, but I remember some things. I dunno why I punched her in the face that one time."

"You punched her in the face?!" Louise was trying so hard not to laugh out loud.

"It was an accident, okay?! I was malfunctioning! I-I would never do that now."

"Wow, a stuttering robot," Louise mused.

"So he stimulates emotions, too?" Bob asked Linda.

"Yeah, it makes him more approachable and humanlike," Linda answered.

"It's like he _is_ a human," Tina gasped, "except robotic."

Just then, the entry bell rang, and Teddy and Mort walked in. Gene stretched himself as far as he could to peer out the kitchen window at the two men. Nothing in his programming told him who they were.

"Who are they?" Gene asked.

"That's Teddy and Mort," Bob answered. "They're regulars here." Linda bounced with excitement

"Oh man, are they gonna love you!"


End file.
